


Nobody Cares

by Skullharvester



Series: One-Shots (Ratchet & Clank) [8]
Category: Ratchet & Clank
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:08:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27156391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skullharvester/pseuds/Skullharvester
Summary: After the events that transpired at the factory, Victor checks in on Rita.
Series: One-Shots (Ratchet & Clank) [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2120196





	Nobody Cares

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy and have fun! 
> 
> If you liked this tale, please drop me a kudos and/or a comment to let me know if you'd like to see more! 
> 
> Thank you, and have a wonderful night!

* * *

“You’re sure you’re okay?”

Rita sighed, ceasing her typing on the laptop at her desk, and cradled her chin on her crossed fingers.

Victor, the red warbot looming beside her, continued, “It’s just rough that they were so young, y’know? All those hotbots we put outta commission, I mean. Didn’t even get a chance ta see the galaxy. It’d be one thing if they were soldiers; we’re programmed ready ta die the minute we come off the assembly line.”

“Victor… For the last time, I don’t wanna talk about it,” the robotic woman muttered, going back to her work. 

Victor watched her for a length of time, shifting his broken jaw from side-to-side every so often concernedly. “You’re tough as nails for a hotbot, ya know that?”

“I guess.” Her eyes didn’t express her feelings; instead, their glossy surfaces reflected her computer’s screen, obscuring emotion with a rapidly-filling report form she was preparing for Drek that detailed the events of the night before.

“You heard from your sister lately?” Victor asked. His subject of choice wasn’t much better than the first.

“Not really,” Rita said.

“Maybe you should give her a call,” Victor suggested. “See how she’s doin’, and all that. That might cheer ya up.”

He may have been right, Rita supposed. Even though she and her estranged sibling still weren’t getting along so swimmingly as of late, Rita could never bring herself to disown the only sister she was close to since her early days of her life. She had many sisters, having been created at the very factory she helped to loot empty, but she shared a special bond with one of them – a bond that she could never explain entirely.

They were inseparable from the day they rolled off the end of the assembly line, until the inevitable complications of life separated them.

Rita connected the wire that dangled at the end of one of her audio receptors to the phone on her desk, then dialed her sibling’s number. The ring went on for so long that she’d almost given up hope for an answer, but just as she was about to disconnect the call, someone picked up on the other end.

“Hello?” said a familiar female voice.

“Hi, sis. It’s Rita. How’ve you been?”

“Uhhh…” Rita’s sister sounded annoyed. “Like you care. Tsh.”

“I _do_ care!”

“Whatever, Ms. Spy Lady, or whatever it is you’re doing that’s soooo important.”

Rita realized her finger was hovering over the disconnect button, and moved her hand away, refusing to give into the temptation to press it. One thing was for certain: Her sister really knew how to push _her_ buttons.

“At least I have a _real_ job!” Rita snapped before she could fully calm herself down. She regretted saying that immediately.

“Excuse me!?”

Rubbing her metallic forehead with one hand, Rita composed herself. “I’m sorry, I didn’t call just to argue with you. There’s just a lot on my mind lately, and –,”

Suddenly, the hotbot on the other end of the line went off into an infuriated rant, and it seemed that no matter how many times she kept trying to squeeze a word or two in, Rita couldn’t get through to her at this point.

“Listen-,”

“Don’t interrupt me!”

“Sis, I-,”

“And another thing-,”

“I’m sorry.”

“Bi-,”

Rita ripped the cord from her audio receptor right out of the phone, cutting the conversation short. She covered her face with her palms and shook her head in disappointment towards herself. 

When Victor came closer to give her a hug, she slapped him away with a flail of her arms, then went back to hiding the fact that lubricant was running down her face all the way to her wrists as she wept.

“Leave me alone!” she snapped with a choked sob that made her vocalizer crackle with static. “Go away!”

“It ain’t your fault, Rita.”

“Yes it is!”

“She’ll get over it.”

Victor was shoved out the door by the smaller robot, mostly because he allowed her to do so. He knew he was physically stronger, even if she were more clever and agile, and could resist like a stone wall if he _really_ wanted to.

The thing is, he didn’t want to. He knew she needed some time alone.

But as soon as he was shut out from her office, the crying stopped. Already, she was back to business.

He should have felt glad that she wasn’t upset anymore, but instead, he felt sorry for her as he trudged away, heading off to recharge his battery. Hotbots were sensitive types and needed to cry on occasion, so he was told. 

But Rita didn’t like to cry. He vaguely remembered that when he’d first met her, she did it all the time, but now it was happening less and less. She was a much different person back then; much more open with her mechanical heart, metaphorically speaking.

Working for Drek changed people after a while. It changed him. 

Once, he was a mercenary – built just for that purpose by the manufacturer on Quartu that Drek Industries eventually bought out.

He was the kind of warbot that broke the mold. Literally. When his chassis was being formed on the assembly line, the mold fractured on its debut, so he ended up being one-of-a-kind. The company went with a different, more lightweight design for the rest of the intended run of warbots, and those warbots would become the first squad he’d ever team up with.

They didn’t last.

With each assignment they were leased out to – robots had virtually no rights of their own back then and were considered to be property, less of the team came back on one piece. Those who couldn’t be easily repaired were shipped right off to a recycling facility to be scrapped and made into something new, like a printer or a fancy paperweight.

In the end, Victor was the only survivor of all of the warbots to come out of that factory before the buyout. He never thought he’d make it this far, to be honest.

For a very long time, he ran solo, doing whatever odd-job he could get that wasn’t too beneath him. He got less picky as the money came in less frequently. Suddenly, no job was too small, but the more unbecoming gigs wounded his once-massive pride, like a thousand little cuts.

When he saw the advertisement for the opening Drek had for a personal bodyguard, he felt his luck was finally looking up, and once he had the job locked down, saw it as an omen that he’d be back on his feet in no time. 

He thought that maybe one day, he’d even have enough bolts to start a mercenary enterprise of his own. Robots had been given a (limited) right to autonomy shortly before this point in time, so now he could legally own a company, if he wanted.

But as the years continued to creep by, his passion became complacency. Working for Drek wasn’t so bad; he was fine with it. It paid well, and now he had this nagging feeling in the back of his rusted head that going solo again was too big of a gamble. 

Plus, it would cross Drek, who said over and over again: “I need you, Victor! You can’t just _leave_!”

So, he didn’t. He stayed, and thankfully, that lead to him meeting Rita and later the drophyd named Finn – two of the best friends of his life now. 

He couldn’t complain. He would sometimes, but he tried not to.

That was exactly the problem, though. After working for Drek for so long, you cared less. About everything. 

You learned to look the other way when he asked you to do something you didn’t believe aligned with your personal honor code, if you had one. Money wasn’t an issue, so you weren’t distracted much by the daily grind. Your needs were taken care of, and for the most part, you were treated as an equal. 

What else could anybody ask for?

Although, Victor couldn’t escape the lingering sense that somewhere along the line, you traded a part of yourself away under the blarg’s employ, but Victor was falling apart so fast at this rate in his old age that the loss of a piece or two was hardly noticeable.

Who cared?


End file.
